1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging device and an imaging method.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-239063, filed Oct. 30, 2012, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In an imaging device such as an electronic camera without an optical finder, a display device such as a thin film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) or an electronic view finder (EVF) is provided as a configuration for checking a subject to be photographed. A moving image of a subject to be photographed is displayed on a display device using a so-called live view function. In the live view function, an image (hereinafter referred to as “live view image”) of each frame to be displayed on the display device is generated from a pixel signal of each frame continuously input from an image sensor and the live view image of each frame is sequentially displayed on the display device for every frame.
FIG. 9 is a timing chart illustrating an example of a relationship between the timing of the image sensor and the timing of the display device in the imaging device of the related art. A vertical synchronization signal CCDVD illustrated in FIG. 9 is an imaging vertical synchronization signal representing the timing at which the image sensor starts an output of an imaged pixel signal, and a vertical synchronization signal TFTVD is a display vertical synchronization signal representing the timing at which the display device starts a display of the live view image. As illustrated in FIG. 9, the vertical synchronization signals CCDVD and TFTVD are synchronized and a phase difference (see a phase difference P of FIG. 9) between the vertical synchronization signals CCDVD and TFTVD is maintained at a predetermined value, so that an image captured by the image sensor can be displayed on the display device after a fixed period of time.
In addition, for example, technology of an imaging device including a plurality of image processing units is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3988461 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2010-101935. In the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3988461 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2010-103935, each image processing unit performs image processing of either recording image processing in which a still image to be recorded is generated or display image processing in which an image to be displayed is generated, so that the recording image processing and the display image processing can be simultaneously executed in parallel. Using the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3988461 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2010-103935, an image for checking the still image to be recorded can be displayed on the display device at an early timing.